I don’t write to be famous, I don’t write to be known, I write because I am and I want to be read. How sad to fill a room with paintings no one sees or play music no one hears. Writing is talking without sound, singing without score and dancing without movement and yet, it is all of them. It is a solitary art conjured from thought and expressed by the need to communicate.

HEAD SLAPS, SPEED BUMPS and LIGHTBULBS, one woman's WTF, oops and ah-ha moments of life.

They were published once, and as every writer knows, once is not enough.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

If your path is difficult but you
love what you do, if it has you hanging on by your fingernails one day, and
floating on a cloud the next, sometimes
it just makes sense to love the dog that bites you. I recently used that
line as a comment on Averil Dean’s blog. It got me to thinking.

As a writer who has achieved a
modicum of success I’ve been bitten by rejection so many times that any weaker
person, one less apt to deal with a reddened turned-the-other-cheek, would
have caged that animal or put it to rest. But I love being a writer; I cannot
imagine doing anything else. It feeds my mind and inebriates my soul. It also
fuels ‘the dream’.

I used to think everybody dreams,
everybody wants more, everybody longs for some sort of legacy; I was wrong. I
get that generalizations are foolish, and assumptions suck, but I genuinely pity,
and in a way I envy, those who are content with their station in life. Not-wanting...yes
a part of me is jealous of the calmness, because if you are not-wanting then
you are not open to the angst of not-getting.

But there is duplicity to
calmness; it means you are either at peace, never even thought or dared to want
something besides a pedestrian life or you have given up.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Wikipedia defines miracle as an event attributed to divine
intervention. Others explain it as the unexplainable, that it surpasses all
known human or natural powers and is inexplicable by the laws of
nature...yup…that’s what happened to me this morning…again.

To me miracles can be those really big ones like
someone in a wheelchair, walking, a comatose patient, conscious and talking -
the against all odds ones, the blow your mind kind, the plane crash survivor
ones, the walk away without a scratch from a train wreck ones, well, that’s not
what this is about. This is about an ‘oh-wow-WTF-can-you-believe-this’, brought
way down to everyday level. It was just amazing enough for me to believe something
else is at work here, like a greater power, an ultimate game of life player and
I’m one of those little cars under the player’s index finger being pushed around the
board. My miracle involved money. Not a lot, just enough.

When you are hungry, enough is a feast, when you have
to look up to see the zero in your checkbook, enough is a miracle. Now, more
than ever, I believe God is an accountant.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Thinking
about the force and fallout relating to the columns I am compiling for my book
pretty much takes up most of my thoughts, other than when I’m trying to come up
with something different for dinner or trying to remember which bill has to
paid and when. Remembering what inspired
each column is like separating the wheat from the chaff because sometimes it’s more than one thought
process but a series of a mind full of events. When the diluted liquid boils
away, when the fat is skimmed off the surface, I’m left with the guts of
inspiration and results. And as everyone knows, sometimes the guts of the soup
are tastier than the broth.

One
of the columns, Singing in the Lane, is
about what we say, act and do when we are alone in the car. Singing in the car
is pretty universal, we’ve all done it, and even though we’re all Grammy
winners in the shower, singing in the car and sounding stupid as backup or lead
is pure fun. But the column was not only about singing in the car it was also about
talking. Admitting that I talk to myself in the car and am actually interviewed
(as practice) was pretty easy and explainable, or so I thought because not
sounding like a loon was becoming difficult.

So
I’m driving home from work on Tuesday evening and I’m thinking about my dilemma
when the movie Truman Show comes to
mind...the scene when Truman, Jim Carrey and his best friend, Marlon, played
by Noah Emmerich are sitting on a bridge talking about the truth, which is actually a lie, of their
lifelong friendship.

For
those who are not familiar with the movie it is about a reality show following the life of Truman, a man who has no idea that since birth, he has been surrounded by
actors and that he is watched by the entire world 24/7/365.
When he begins to suspect that something is amiss, his best friend Marlon, a
paid actor, is sent to reassure him that all is fine and that what he is experiencing
is the same angst all people experience from time to time. The two friends are
sitting on the edge of a bridge, it’s late, they are sharing a six-pack and I
remembered Marlon saying something about,
I am paraphrasing, who doesn’t sit on the can and pretend to be interviewed
by Sea Haven News. When I watched that scene the first time, the revelation
that other people did what I occasionally do, I’m sitting in the car not on
the can, was enlightening. So I wasn’t a loon. I wanted to use that scene in my
book.

As
I arrived home I thought I’d have to rent the movie, borrow or buy it, or
somehow find it online just to view the thirty second section of the film to
see if my paraphrasing was correct. That’s when I went from thinking about
Truman to the macaroni and cheese, ham and pea casserole I had to prepare for
dinner.

Fast
forward, today Wednesday I had the day off. The luxury of having the house to
myself had me writing almost all day, and because the house was quiet, I decided
to do one of my most favorite things in the afternoon, take a nap. As I lay
down, the house was to silent so I turned on the TV, to lull me to sleep. Instantly
in all its cinematic wonder, Truman Show came on two minutes before the bridge scene. I am still marveling at how my thoughts,
eighteen hours before set in motion the implausibility of this coincidence. It’s
called a ‘God wink’ when things like that happen, a little thump on the head to
get your attention. Not knowing what attention I was supposed to bring to the
moment, I watched the rest of the movie then went back to the computer and wrote...this.

I never did get a
nap in, so
what do you do in the car while you’re alone? Keep it clean please, God winked
today.

Times Two

My column 'Enough Said' is in 8 ‘Times’ newspapers, a division of The Day in New London, Connecticut. I weekly pitch myself as the writing love-child of Andy Rooney and Erma Bombeck. Not as acerbic as Andy and a bit more modern than Erma, I admire them as winking-paragons of realistic observation. Enoughsaidcolumn.blogspot.com is my tilt on things. Carolynnwith2Ns is my tilt on everything else. Email me at Cpianta@comcast.net
or CP.enoughsaid@aol.com